Build Your SaaS

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Podcasting
**Build Your SaaS**

Follow the journey of Transistor.fm as they bootstrap a podcast hosting startup.

Latest Episodes:

Jon & Justin reveal everything (part 2) Aug 16, 2022

Show notes

It's the fourth anniversary of Transistor's public launch! This is part 2 of "Jon and Justin answer your questions."

(00:37) - When did you start paying yourself how much you wanted to make?
(01:34) - Any broad advice for startups?
(11:38) - How did you decide on your tech stack?
(14:16) - How did you prioritize features?
(15:49) - Were you embarrased by the first version you shipped?
(17:48) - How did you decide on pricing?
(21:07) - How would you have found employees without your network?
(27:25) - Do you have more or less freedom or stress in your lives?

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Jason Charnes
Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
Alex Payne
Bill Condo
Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
Oleg Kulyk
Ethan Gunderson
Ward Sandler, Memberspace
Russell Brown, Photivo.com
Noah Prail
Colin Gray
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
Dan Buda
Darby Frey
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Jon & Justin reveal everything (part 1) Aug 10, 2022

Show notes

It's the fourth anniversary of Transistor's public launch! In this two-part series, Jon and Justin answer your questions.

01:22 - Our history
14:51 - What is the secret to running Transistor as a company? See our values here.
21:19 - What was the most challenging aspect of the past 4 years?
22:14 - Where do you see Transistor at 5 or 10 year?
26:19 - Do you ever feel like you're not doing enough? Book: Running the Dream.
32:09 - Have we reached peak podcast?
34:36 - What's something you've gotten better at over the past 4 years?
38:23 - What was the lowest point in Transistor's history?
40:09 - What have you learned about partnership?
43:17 - What has been the most fun memory of your journey?
47:04 - What is the definition of enough for Transistor?
50:49 - What are your thoughts on open startups vs private?
52:25 - What are the most impactful decisions you've made?
56:34 - How has your job changed year to year?

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Bootstrapping in France (Baptiste Jamin from Crisp) Jul 12, 2022

Show notes

Baptiste Jamin co-founded Crisp with a friend he met in high school.

Highlights (go straight to 🔥 for the best stuff):

1:42 – Crisp competes with massive companies: Zendesk, HelpScout, Intercom
2:52 – How did Crisp get started? (they started young!)
4:40 – The key insight that lead them to start Crisp 🔥
7:03 – "Being young and in France, how much did you know about the startup ecosystem?"
9:39 – How they bootstrapped Crisp in their twenties 🔥
12:52 – Market insights and how they found their first customers 🔥
16:02 – How they got a surge of new customers 🔥
22:39 – Why Crisp charges LESS than their competitors 🔥
30:14 – What it's like to have a customer base that is comprised of many niches 🔥
32:30 – How does a small team ship such high-quality software? 🔥
35:06 – Marketing strategy and tactics for small SaaS companies 🔥
40:36 – Key insight on Crisp's "job to be done." 🔥
45:52 – Crisp's simple sales trick for closing more deals 🔥
50:58 – Why some EU countries have an advantage in product differentiation 🔥
1:01:54 – Emerging global SaaS markets you might not have heard about

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Jason Charnes
Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
Alex Payne
Bill Condo
Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
Oleg Kulyk
Ethan Gunderson
Ward Sandler, Memberspace
Russell Brown, Photivo.com
Noah Prail
Colin Gray
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
Dan Buda
Darby Frey
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What's it like getting acquired by Spotify? (Dave Zohrob from Chartable) Jun 14, 2022

Show notes

Dave Zohrob is the co-founder of Chartable (a podcast analytics startup), talks about selling his company to Spotify in February 2022.

Highlights (go straight to 🔥 for the best stuff):

1:00 – What's the Spotify office in New York like?
5:24 – Dave's first startup: he started an indie record label (Tellall Records)
7:12 – Founding in Chartable in 2017
8:00 – Behind the scenes: talking to Chris Enns (our editor at Lemon Productions)
9:50 – Dave's first business as a kid: publishing programming tutorials on the internet (Qbasic.com)
12:25 – What made you want to make money on the internet?
14:25 – Do all geeks have the intuition to start a business? (Justin's tweet) 🔥
19:23 – What's your real motivation for building a startup? 🔥
24:28 – Side-projects vs Bootstrapping vs Venture Funding (VC) 🔥
30:12 – Once you choose the VC-funded path, what's it like? 🔥
32:00 – The huge risk/cost for founders with families 🔥
34:30 – Public health insurance is the best way to boost entrepreneurship
36:30 – Bootstrappers and VC-funded founders have this same anxiety 🔥
40:00 – What it's like joining a massive company as a small 11-person company? 🔥
48:10 – What's next in podcast ad tech, analytics, and attribution 🔥

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Jason Charnes
Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
Alex Payne
Bill Condo
Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
Oleg Kulyk
Ethan Gunderson
Ward Sandler, Memberspace
Russell Brown, Photivo.com
Noah Prail
Colin Gray
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
Dan Buda
Darby Frey
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Patrick Campbell: why ProfitWell sold to Paddle for $200M May 31, 2022

Show notes

Patrick Campbell just sold his startup, ProfitWell, to Paddle for $200 million.

Highlights (go straight to 🔥 for the best stuff):

0:00 – "My problem is I'm always curious if other people are living a better dream than me."
1:30 – The major downside to bootstrapping is the lack of network
2:20 – Selling ProfitWell to Paddle, and integrating the two teams.
4:15 – How ProfitWell got started (2012)
6:00 – Initially three co-founders (Crunchbase)
7:20 – Patrick's background (what he did before ProfitWell)
10:10 – What did bootstrapping ProfitWell look like? (How much did each founder invest?)
14:15 – Do you want to be a lifestyle company or a "big ass company?" 🔥
15:55 – What salary did Patrick pay himself? (Tweet) 🔥
18:25 – Differences between Patrick (ProfitWell) and Josh Pigford (Baremetrics) 🔥
21:45 – Should bootstrapped companies go freemium and try to "win the market?" 🔥
26:40 – The characteristics of your market determine most of your outcomes 🔥🔥
29:24 – "Don't underestimate the velocity and size of your market." 🔥
34:35 – What doe the average SaaS company spend on sales and marketing? 🔥
37:39 – Pricing your SaaS discussion 🔥
42:45 – Why competitors entering a new market can be better for your company. 🔥
47:10 – Should bootstrapped companies try to "own the market?" 🔥
52:10 – "We're in the second phase of SaaS: here's what's coming next." 🔥
61:53 – Did ProfitWell employees have equity?

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Going from $0 to $2 million in ARR in 7 years (the Missive story) Apr 26, 2022

Show notes

Philippe Lehoux and his two co-founders started working on Missive around 2015, and just passed $2 million in annual recurring revenue.

0:00 – Getting to know Philippe, and what it's like living in Quebec
3:09 – How Missive got started: "how can we quickly collaborate on an email as a team?"
8:15 – How they get most of their customers
10:30 – How their first product (Conference Badge), funded the development of Missive
13:55 – How the market dictates most of your success
16:30 – How they deal with competitors
28:00 – Another example: Crisp is competing head-to-head with Intercom
30:25 – Why indie startups should compete on price

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Jason Charnes
Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
Alex Payne
Bill Condo
Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
Mitch
Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
Oleg Kulyk
Ethan Gunderson
Chris Willow
Ward Sandler, Memberspace
Russell Brown, Photivo.com
Noah Prail
Colin Gray
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
Dan Buda
Darby Frey
Brad from Canada
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Taylor Otwell: the business of Laravel in 2022 Apr 05, 2022

Show notes

Taylor Otwell, is the founder of Laravel, a programming framework for PHP. But he's also one of the most successful indie SaaS operators I know. In this episode we discuss:

0:30 – Taylor is changing how he hires and manages people at Laravel
6:01 – How Taylor is finding new employees to work on Forge, Vapor, and his other products
7:34 – The Laravel ecosystem has incubated incredible talent: Miguel Piedrafita, Caleb Porzio, Adam Wathan, Aaron Francis, Jack Ellis...
10:03 – More and more indie SaaS apps are being built in Laravel
10:48 – When is the next Laracon conference?
13:11 – Taylor Otwell has the classic bootstrap success story
14:28 – Laravel has been running too lean
17:00 – What's it like to work as a developer at Laravel? (pair programming)
18:33 – How Taylor does product development
22:08 – "I haven't told anyone this yet, but I actually considered selling Laravel this past year." Here's why Taylor decided not to sell.
26:30 – How do you deal with internet fame, and being a "known person?"
28:59 – Dealing with haters on Twitter
31:50 – What is the future of web development, and the full-stack developer? What is the future of Ruby on Rails and Laravel?
35:53 – Building excitement around PHP and Laravel with young people.
42:13 – What inspires kids to get into programming? When it's fun, easy, accessible. This is why so many people started with Hypercard, Microsoft Access, PHP, Adobe Flash...

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Why Customer Support = Startup Success Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

Helen and Justin talk about the importance of customer support for indie SaaS companies.

1:08 The hardest part about podcasting is doing it every week
1:38 We just launched the new podcast website themes feature.
2:24 Getting feedback, or seeing people use your product, is fuel for indie makers
6:08 Helen's experience doing Customer Success for other companies: education, ConvertKit, MakerPad.
8:53 Justin's tweet: "Customer Support is the most under-appreciated role in SaaS."
10:00 The different forms of customer support: pre-sales, in-depth bug fixing, answering questions.
12:45 How does the Transistor team differ when we do support?
14:39 What Justin's learned from Helen in terms of giving better customer service
17:25 People expect us to be bots
17:45 The number of tickets we get each week: it's about ~100 conversations per week:
- 60-70% of those are new conversations,
- 30-40% is us responding to existing threads.
18:55 How we manage live chat so we can answer people fairly quickly
29:10 More tips for indie hackers who are doing customer support

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
Alex Payne
Bill Condo
Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
Mitch
Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
Oleg Kulyk
Ethan Gunderson
Chris Willow
Ward Sandler, Memberspace
Russell Brown, Photivo.com
Noah Prail
Colin Gray
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
Dan Buda
Darby Frey
Brad from Canada
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What's it really like to work at Transistor? Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

We got the whole band together: Helen and Jason join Jon and Justin to talk about what it's really like to work at Transistor

Helen, Jason, Jon, Justin, all squeezed into the podcasting closet to make an episode

0:55 Jason's first podcast ever
1:12 Helen's been on other podcasts: Startups for the Rest of Us, Indie Bites, Indie Worldwide
3:06 Should we invest in the "auto publish to YouTube" feature?
- Tom Webster: why would people listen to podcasts on YouTube?
13:32 The best features the ones that feel like "magic" when a customer uses them
18:46 The "wait and see" product development philosophy
20:15 A new podcast website builder CMS and website designs
23:34 Writing a new templating language in Liquid (Shopify)
26:23 Our new CLI tool: receiver (built with Go)
31:30 Making a few new podcast website themes
31:57 Adding language localization for podcast websites (English, French, Spanish)
34:30 How we run our weekly team meetings
35:44 New podcast website themes are out! (YouTube demo)
40:39 For next week: what questions do you have for @jsonpearl and @helenryles?
42:16 Patreon shout outs

What should we talk about next?

Twitter:@buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
Email us: support@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters

Rewardful.com
Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
Bill Condo (@mavrck)
Ward from MemberSpace.com
Evandro Sasse
Austin Loveless
Michael Sitver
Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Founders' retreat Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

Jon and Justin recorded this episode sitting on the same couch!

Photo of the Coeur de Boeuf
The last time we were together in person: April 30, 2019 [Photo]
2022 roadmap planning. We're exploring what we'd like to accomplish this year.
- Update and improve the podcast website builder
- Build new podcast website templates based on Liquid
- Add tools that help podcasters promote their show
- Continue to improve our Dynamic Audio Insertion features
- Create new features that help podcasters monetize their show
Sales/marketing planning:
- Reaching out to major affiliates to see how we can better partner with them
- Looking at ways of rewarding our customers for referring through Rewardful
- Freemium?
Employees/company stuff
- Options: Carta
- Benefits
- Possible hiring
Future:
- Long-term, we’re looking at an acquisition: what do we need to do to build up to that?